137: Al Ries & Laura Ries: The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR (B+: Lots of practical marketing advice and a different way of viewing advertising. In general, I think they’re right that PR is more effective than advertising)

132: Paul Babiak and Robert D. Hare: Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (D: Very dry in places and in large chunks of the book, it comes across like it’s specifically written for human resources managers at large companies.)

131: Malcolm Gladwell: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (C: It’s an intriguing, well written read, but after reading it, it’s hard to see how to apply it — and a marketing book without any application leaves something to be desired.)

130: Drew Pinsky: Cracked: Putting Broken Lives Together Again (B: I read this because I liked Pinksy’s show, Sober House. The book covers a lot of the same ground, but with regular people. Anybody advocating legalizing drugs should read this book first.)

113) Robert Kirkman and Sean Phillips: Marvel Zombies (A: What if all the Marvel super-heroes became zombies and started eating everybody else? This graphic novel covered it and covered it an entertaining manner. A fast, fun read)

96) Peter Haugen: World History for Dummies (B: The “For Dummies” series books tend to be very uneven in quality, especially when they’re covering broad topics. However, this is a good one. It does a great job of keeping it interesting although it seems a little shallow in places, which is, of course, unavoidable when you’re covering the history of the world in less than 400 pages)

95) Jean Raspail: The Camp Of The Saints (A: This riveting, fictional book describes the collapse of Western society after it’s inundated with hordes of unwanted immigrants. It’s a hell of a good story and it’s surprisingly how much of the book you can see unfolding in the world today)

94) Peter Heather: The Fall Of The Roman Empire (A-: The book does a particularly good job of coherently explaining the conditions that led to the collapse of the Roman Empire while keeping you from getting bored)

90) Brian Lynch & Franco Urru: Spike: Asylum (C-: This is another “Buffyverse” graphic novel, but unfortunately, it’s not a very good one)

89) Joss Whedon: Fray (A-: This is a graphic novel from the same guy who’s behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s a tale of another slayer from the future and it’s good)

88) Ian Coburn: God is a Woman: Dating Disasters (A: This is a funny book from comedian Ian Coburn about his dating experiences — mostly the bad ones. It definitely keeps you laughing and every so often, you get a little bit of good advice to boot)

87) Cesar Millan: Be The Pack Leader (B-: This was readable, but bizarrely, most of the info that diehard “Dog Whisperer” fans will want to see, about dealing with the nitty gritty of dog behavior, is contained in an appendix)

86) Clarence Thomas: My Grandfather’s Son (A-: This reminds me of David Horowitz’s Radical Son. It kept me locked in and paying attention from beginning to end)

85) Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child: The Book of the Dead (C: This is a mystery/crime novel with some interesting elements, but there were several people who were so super-humanly competent that it made it impossible to suspend disbelief and just enjoy the story).

80) Bob Novak: The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington (B+: I really enjoyed the book, which covers Novak’s 50 years of reporting in Washington, which mostly seemed to consist of meeting important people for lunch, getting info out of them over drinks, and reporting it in his column. However, I am a blogger and a hardcore political junky. If that definition doesn’t fit you as well, you may not enjoy the book nearly as much as I did.)

78) Michael Moorcock: The Weird of the White Wolf 3 (A+: This is book 3 in what I consider to be the best fantasy series of all-time and I wanted to reread it to see if it was as good as I thought it was. It was…)

77) Col David Hunt: On the Hunt: How to Wake Up Washington and Win the War on Terror (C: While Hunt definitely scores some points and says some things of interest, he complains so incessantly, about almost everything related to the war on terror, that his complaints come across as contradicting each other in places. Also, because he seems to like almost nothing about the war we’re running on the war on terror, it’s hard to separate the “signal from the noise” and know how much stock to put in his ideas.

75) James Bowman: Honor: A History (A: A very well done book that helps explain our own culture’s history with honor and that of other nations. This book does an outstanding job of explaining behavior that at times, appears downright mysterious to people not steeped in a culture of honor.)

73) Allan Bloom: The Closing of the American Mind (C-: This is supposed to be a conservative classic and it does have an exceptional start, but it quickly becomes very tedious, spends far too much time on philosophy, and comes across as mere crabby complaining in many places.)

69) Frank J. Fleming & Sarah C. Fleming: The Chronicles of Dubya Volume 1: The Defeat of Saddam (B: This is a book based on IMAO’s “In My World” series. It was extremely funny and well put together, but because I was already a fan, I’ve read a lot of the material in the book already on IMAO’s blog. That’s why it got a “B” rating. On the other hand, if you haven’t read a lot of the series on IMAO and are looking for something funny to peruse, I’d highly recommend this book.)

68) Greg Bear: Blood Music (C: The first 3/4 of the book was really exceptional, but Bear went all M. Night Shyamalan at the end and ruined what was shaping up to be an extraordinary work of science fiction with plot twists too bizarre to be taken seriously.)

66) C. S. Lewis: Mere Christianity (B: The first 3/4 of the book was simply brilliant, but the book bogs down a lot at the end when Lewis goes from explaining Christianity simply, in an easy to understand way, and gets deep into theology.)

65) John Lewis Gaddis: The Cold War: A New History (B-: The book was supposed to be a concise history of the Cold War and it was — perhaps too much so. It’s probably a good summary for people who aren’t familiar with the Long, Twilight Struggle, but it also seemed like a lot of key episodes weren’t covered as well as they should be.)

59) Dwight Eisenhower: In Review, Pictures I’ve Kept (B: It was fascinating to read about WW2 and Eisenhower’s time in the White House and little details jumped out at you. The UN seemed to actually function back then. Eisenhower said he had opposed using nukes against Japan, but let it be known that he was willing to use nuclear weapons against China if there was a conflict. It’s a good historical perspective.)

58) Scott Williams: Hardcore History: The Extremely Unauthorized Story of the ECW (B: I can’t fully explain why I read this book so soon after reading the other except that perhaps I thought it might have some better stories. It did — a little better anyway, although it covered a lot of the same ground.)

55) Victor Davis Hanson: Why the West Has Won (A-: VDH describes how and why some of the greatest Western military victories — and defeats — took place.)

54) Maddox: The Alphabet Of Manliness (C: Maddox is about the funniest writer you’ll ever run across on the net, but the book is really uneven. Some chapters (where Maddox sticks to what he does better than anyone else, biting sarcasm) are laugh out loud funny and others are very ho-hum.)

49) Donald Kagan: The Peloponnesian War (A: As you read about this epic 25 year long war between Greek States that happened 2500 years ago, you will, believe it or not, see parallels very applicable to the war on terror pop-up.)

39) Claire Berlinski: Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis Is America’s, Too (B: Her style, which involves taking personal stories and weaving them into broad narratives works extremely well in most cases, but not so well in others. Still, this was a thought provoking book that showcased some seldom discussed, but very relevant ideas about Europe)

37) Tom Bethell: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (D: This book has a lot of fascinating information in it, but some of the chapters, for example on cancer and aids in Africa, struck me as a bit flakey and “off.” That left me unsure of how much of the book to trust.)

35) Barry Goldwater: The Conscience of a Conservative (C+: I didn’t agree with some of Goldwater’s views on race issues and the book feels a bit dated, perhaps because so many of his ideas have already been adopted and talked to death by conservatives and libertarians, but it was readable.)

32) Stuart Bell, Stan Campbell, James S. Bell: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible (A+: Very well written, very informative, easy to read through, and great reading. Highly recommended, especially if you want to learn more about the Bible, but are intimidated by the length and all the, “who begat who’s.”)

31) Rush Limbaugh: The Way Things Ought to Be (A — Reread: This is one of the conservative classics. It’s still a great read, although it feels a bit dated since it discusses a number of current events and it’s more than a decade old.)

30) Robert Leckie: Story of World War I (B+: I bought this one sight unseen so I didn’t realize it was for young adults and therefore shorter than the normal Leckie book. Still, it was an excellent overview of WW1. Probably the equivalent of reading one of those World War 1 for dummies books, except better written)

28) Dean Koontz: Frankenstein, Book One: Prodigal Son (B: This was obviously meant to be the first part of a trilogy or a series which in part, alleviated my dismay at the fact that there wasn’t all that much Frankenstein in this book about Frankenstein.)

26) Victor Davis Hanson: Wars of the Ancient Greeks (D: This is by far the worst thing I’ve ever read by Hanson, perhaps because it was part of a Smithsonian series and they put too many restrictions on him.)

25) Jenna Jameson: How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale (B: I thought reading a book by the world’s most famous porn star would be a nice change of pace — and it was, although it got a little dull in the middle when she killed time by talking about her childhood. Also, while — as you’d expect — this is a very racy book, it really is a cautionary tale.)

23) Katherine DeBrecht: Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! (A for kids: I had a media copy of this one sent to me since it got so much attention. I thought it was an excellent children’s book with a great message and some very funny illustrations.)

22) Tommy Franks: American Soldier (C: Lots of interesting tidbits — for example, the guys at the Pentagon think Douglas Feith is a clown — but very, very dry in some places.)

17) Michelle Malkin: Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild (A-: I proofed this book when it was months away from being published and I thought Michelle did a great job of cataloguing how loony the left has gotten.)